1. How to Get Good Behaviour from Pets
Training Principles and Learning Theory Behaviour and Management of Animals in Society ANIM3043
How to Get Good Behaviour from Pets
Presented by
Dr Cam Day
Animal Behaviour Veterinarian
Cam Day Consulting Ph
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2. Course Content Lecture 1 - Training Principles and Learning Theory
Lecture 2 - Solving Behavioural Problems 2

3. Focus Videos Attention Seeking-1 Attention Seeking Post Treatment
Aggression- 1
Aggression-2
Barking
Circling Circling-2
Resource-guarding aggression 3

4. But Why is My Current Dog Different to My Last Dog?
What makes a dog into a dog?
Why do we have huge breeds like Danes and Mastiffs maturing to 120kg and tiny dogs like Chihuahuas maturing at 2kg?
Modern day dogs are mostly mutant mutts! 4

5. But Why is Your Pet’s Behaviour Difficult? Is it Nature or Nurture?
The behaviour of animals is determined by their genetic profile (Nature) and by life’s experiences after birth (Nurture).
Genetic influences
Life’s Experiences
Innate B’s
Breed Influences
Environment
Learning 5

6. Which has the biggest effect on your dogs behaviour?6

7. How Animals Learn to be Good or Bad! Nurturing Good or Bad Habits
There are two main ways a pet learns
Reinforcement
Punishment
Strengthens
a Behaviour
weakens a
behaviour 7

8. Reinforcement
The more often a behaviour is reinforced, the more likely that behaviour will occur again.
But – animals can reinforce unwanted behaviours
There are two types of reinforcement
Positive
Reinforcement
Negative
Reinforcement 8

9. Punishment
The more often a behaviour is punished, the less likely that behaviour will occur again.
There are two types of punishment
Negative
Punishment
Positive
Punishment 9

10. Let’s Look at How You Drive!
Positive punishment of driving over speed limit
Negative Reinforcement of driving under speed limit
Both Positive and Negative Punishment of driving over speed limit and Negative Reinforcement of driving over the speed limit 10

11. Case Studies for Reinforcement
Positive Reinforcement
where a behaviour is strengthened through the receipt of a reward when it performs the behaviour
Example - Gizmo and the Postman
Negative Reinforcement
where a behaviour is strengthened by the lessening or cessation of something unpleasant
Example - Roxy and the Thunder Storm 11

12. Case Studies for Punishment
Positive Punishment
where a behaviour is weakened by the occurrence of something unpleasant when the behaviour occurs
Example - Fur Ball and the Vege Patch
Negative Punishment
when a behaviour is weakened by lessening or cessation of something pleasant
Example- Nibbles and Time Out 12

13. Conditioning – a type of learning
Conditioning – where an animal learns to respond in a certain way to a certain stimulus
E.G. when you walk past a coffee shop, your mouth waters
There are two types:
Classical
conditioning
Operant
Conditioning 13

14. Let’s IQ Test a Dog
You can IQ test you dog and give it a three number score
Do this using Negative Punishment and Positive Reinforcement 14

15. Classical Conditioning
Pavlovian Conditioning = Classical Conditioning
An unconditioned stimulus (US) produces a unconditioned response (UR) which is reflex-like (usually involving the contraction of smooth muscle and is often an Innate behaviour)
A neutral stimulus (NS) is then paired with the US until the NS alone triggers the same response.
Neither reinforcement or punishment apply as the UR is not within conscious control 15

16. Classical Conditioning
Unconditioned
stimulus
Unconditioned
response
Food
Salivation
Repeated conditioned
Stimulus
Bell 16

17. Operant Conditioning Operant conditioning is a form of learning.
a behaviour is influenced by its effects
If a behaviour is reinforced, it is likely to occur again = Operant conditioning
Trial and error learning is equivalent to Operant conditioning
When training an animal with rewards, we are mostly using Operant conditioning
B F Skinner 17

18. A Task to consider
When training a dog to walk to heel on lead, how could you employ positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment and/or negative punishment to create the ‘walking to heel’ behaviour?? 18